It also is the second LEED rating for a Rapid building. Rapid Central Station on Grandville Avenue was given a "LEED Certified" rating in 2006, the first LEED rating for a public transit building in the country.

The operations center serves as The Rapid's bus garage and maintenance facility, and includes a dispatch center, employee training space and other features.

The Interurban Transit Partnership said features that helped boost the center to a Gold rating were:

• A bus wash water reclamation system that saves 9 million gallons of water annually

When the rating for Catalyst Partners and M Retail Solutions was announced in October, Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell boasted about the city's LEED ratings.

"Grand Rapids was known to have the highest number of LEED-certified projects per capita and now we have the honor of having the project with the highest number of LEED points in the world, within our city limits," Heartwell said in an October release.